Ming-Na Kissed a Girl

...and she liked it! The actress dishes about her new Syfy series.

“In midlife, you’re confident about what truly matters—that’s a great freedom.”

Good thing she’s a science fiction fan, because Ming-Na’s new Syfy series, Stargate Universe, isn’t for the intergalactic faint-of-heart. It follows a group stranded on a spacecraft, and Ming-Na plays the ship’s human resources officer, who is gay. “She is a strong character,” says the Macau–born actress, known for her role on ER. “But she’s not a bitch. She cares about the people she hires.” Here, a look at Ming-Na’s personal universe.

The best part about playing a lesbian is . . .
. . . kissing a girl, which I’d never done before. The lips are softer!

I’ve struggled with . . .
. . . the limited roles I have to choose from because of my ethnicity. Sixty to 70 percent [of the parts I see] are quite stereotypical.

The craziest thing I’ve done for work was . . .
. . . pretending to push out a baby on ER when I really was eight and a half months pregnant. There was concern I would break my water. After I gave birth, I told the director, “I don’t think I screamed loud enough.”